The contemporaries of Louis thought him tall. Voltaire, who might have seen him, and who had lived with some of the most distinguished members of his court, speaks repeatedly of his majestic stature. Yet it is as certain as any fact can be that he was rather below than above the middle size. He had, it seems, a way of holding himself, a way of walking, a way of swelling his chest and rearing his head, which deceived the eyes of the multitude. Eighty years after his death the royal cemetery was violated by the revolutionists; his coffin was opened, his body was dragged out, and it appeared that the prince whose majestic figure had been so extolled was, in truth, a little man. His person and his government have had the same fate. He had the art of making both appear grand and august, in spite of the clearest evidence that both were below the ordinary standard. Death and time have exposed both the deceptions. The body of the great king has been measured more justly than it was measured by the courtiers who were afraid to look above his shoe-tie. His public character has been scrutinized by men free from the hopes and fears of Boileau and Molière. In the grave the most majestic of princes is only five feet eight. In history the hero and the politician dwindles into a vain and feeble tyrant, the slave of priests and women; little in war, little in government, little in everything but the art of simulating greatness. He left to his infant successor a famished and miserable people, a beaten and humbled army, provinces turned into deserts by misgovernment and persecution, factions dividing the court, a schism raging in the Church, an immense debt, an empty treasury, immeasurable palaces, an innumerable household, inestimable palaces and furniture. All the sap and nutriment of the state seemed to have been drawn to feed one bloated and unwholesome excrescence. The nation was withered. The court was morbidly flourishing. Yet it does not appear that the associations which attached the people to the monarchy had lost strength during his reign. He had neglected or sacrificed their dearest interests, but he had struck their imaginations. WILLIAM III OF ENGLAND. BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY [William Henry of Nassau, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland, born 1650, raised to the English throne as king consort with Mary daughter of James II, in 1688, died 1702. One of the ablest monarchs in English annals, his accession to the throne of Great Britain was one of the turning points in modern history, and effectually consummated those reforms in the English Constitution inaugurated in the revolution of 1640.] The place which William Henry, Prince of Orange-Nassau, occupies in the history of England and of mankind is so great that it may be desirable to portray with some minuteness the strong lineaments of his character.[27]